1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electronic networks, and relates more particularly to a system and method for determining processing capabilities of devices in an electronic network.
2. Description of the Background Art
Implementing an effective method for utilizing processing capabilities of electronic devices within an electronic network is a significant consideration for manufacturers and designers of contemporary electronic systems. An electronic device in a distributed electronic network may advantageously communicate with other remote electronic devices in the network to share and substantially increase the resources available to individual devices in the network. For example, an electronic network may be implemented in a user's home to enable flexible and beneficial sharing of resources between various consumer electronic devices, such as personal computers, digital video disk devices, digital set-top boxes for digital broadcasting, television sets, and audio playback systems.
Managing and controlling a network of electronic devices may create substantial challenges for designers of electronic networks. For example, enhanced demands for increased functionality and performance may require more system processing power and require additional hardware resources across the network. An increase in processing or hardware requirements may also result in a corresponding detrimental economic impact due to increased production costs and operational inefficiencies. Furthermore, efficiently accessing the increased functionality may pose certain problems.
Network size is also a factor that affects the control and management of an electronic network. Communications in an electronic network typically become more complex as the number of individual devices or nodes increases. Assume that a particular device on an electronic network is defined as a local device with local software elements, and other devices on the electronic network are defined as remote devices with remote software elements. Accordingly, a local software module on the local device may need to communicate with various remote software elements on remote devices across the electronic network. However, successfully managing a substantial number of electronic devices across a single network may provide significant benefits to a system user.
Furthermore, enhanced device capability to perform various advanced processing functions may provide additional benefits to a system user, but may also place increased demands on the control and management of the various devices in the electronic network. For example, an enhanced electronic network that effectively accesses, processes, and displays digital television programming may benefit from efficient network management techniques because of the large amount and complexity of the digital data involved.
In addition, the presence of electronic devices with extended processing capabilities and functionality may present a need for creating efficient techniques to allow discovery of the extended capabilities by various software elements in the network. For example, if an enhanced video cassette recorder (VCR) with extended capabilities is added to the network, then the other software elements in the network may require information about the existence and processing capabilities of the newly-added VCR, so that all software elements in the network may advantageously utilize the extended capabilities of the newly-added software device.
Therefore, for all the foregoing reasons, implementing an efficient method for utilizing processing capabilities of electronic devices in a distributed electronic network remains a significant consideration for designers, manufacturers, and users of electronic systems.